its-origins-are-indeterminate.net

Four programme screening series presented at

Close-Up Film Centre, London + Whitechapel Gallery

14.03.2018 + 17.03.2018

The title for this screening series comes from Robert Barry’s Untitled (Its Origins are Indeterminate) from 1970. On a single sheet of paper type-written statements cascade down the page. The text reads as follows:

‘Its origin is indeterminate / Sometimes it is alone / It can cause things to happen / It is affected by other things / Some of it is unknown / It may appear to be something it is not’

The screening series Its origins are indeterminate examines the concept of ‘language-as-a-virus.’ As carriers of meaning, words and images are vulnerable to intervention and corruption. The works presented test and bend the limits of language, send out new versions of media to spread, and breakdown systems of controlling grammar.

Its origins are indeterminate features an array of international artists in four programmes. Three of the programmes were presented at Whitechapel Gallery (Making a hunter’s bluff out of a word; The black curtain is the instant when the eyes shut; We want superior forms of corruption), and the fourth, a feature length work (Strain Andromeda The), screened at Close-Up Film Centre.

Featuring: Morehshin Allahyari, Graeme Arnfield, Darren Banks, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Jenny Brady, Terence Broad, Karen Cunningham, Katie Hare, Saskia Holmkvist, Mike Hoolboom, Sky Hopinka, Patrick Hough, Hannah Catherine Jones, Christine Sun Kim & Thomas Mader, Ieva Kraule, Oliver Laric, Liz Magic Laser, Serena Lee, Ghislaine Leung, Deirdre Logue, Sara Magenheimer, Evan Meaney, Anne McGuire, Sondra Perry, Laure Prouvost, Gabrielle de la Puente & Zarina Muhammad, Steve Reinke, Miko Revereza, Manuel Saiz, Keith Sanborn, Linda Stupart, Jenna Sutela, Emily Vey Duke & Cooper Battersby, Douglas Waterman, and Anna Zett.

Respondents: Uma Breakdown, Tamar Clarke-Brown, and Jessa Mockridge.

*Programme Guide + Essays available here:
The world is all that is the case by Nina Trivedi; Its origins are indeterminate by Erik Martinson; Enclosed print by Linda Stupart.

Design by Gaile Pranckunaite.

The series is curated by Erik Martinson and is supported by the inaugural Stuart Croft Foundation Special Projects Award.

With support from: Electronic Arts Intermix, Goldsmiths University of London, LIMA, LUX, Video Data Bank, and Vtape.

Untitled (Its Origins are Indeterminate), Robert Barry, 1970.
Typewriter ink and pencil on paper, 8½ x 12½ inches.
Tanja Grunert and Klemen Gasser Inc, New York.